So what does it mean to be extremely privileged in a third world country? It means you can leave when things get ugly.
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Focusing on what I’ve come to call the “Islamic Small Wars” leaves out a lot of conflict involving autocratic and corrupt governments or, as perhaps may be happening with Brazil (and from this the United States is not immune) befuddled economics leading to gross income disparity and a related host of security and stability issues.
Brazil appears to have a burgeoning economy but, perhaps, a deeply skewed and unbalanced economic and social system, and that rightly calls to action or presence a new journalism and politics.
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The prompt I got before creating this link-forwarding post came by way of Facebook and in Spanish, so, starting from just about scratch, a quick look-up of relevant terms brought the latest framing of the problem to the desktop: Brazilian pride and private interest and some shenanigans between have anchored major sports events that have become a foil for liberal complaint. Beyond posture and sentiment, of course, are real people captive in constrained and difficult lives kept so by either political neglect or political force. Either way, the communitarian needs of the state have not been addressed effectively by way of economic development processes combined with political and social activism.
My introduction to this scenario: Kibera Slum, Nairobi, Kenya.
It’s the same thing, or at least at a distance it looks that way.
Kenya, if acting with both economic and social vision, could distribute the slum’s population to new towns served by rail and developed as manufacturing and transfer points.
Why not?
However, I haven’t seen that idea — mine — tested, lol, but it would seem the labor’s readily available and the land requirement very small in light of the size of immediate urban density and economic distribution issues.
Perhaps like Kenya, Brazil too finds it easier to police and suppress its disenfranchised than engage in aggressive urban and rural (land use) planning, population redistribution (eminent domain may be applied as necessary), appropriate economic development, and perhaps a little chit-chat about family.
Additional Reference
The latest WordPress upgrade altered the link-drag-and-drop that lent itself to “scraping” as well as the development of lengthy reference, so little had to be keyed. Now if I want to share URL, I either key it in the academic manner, embed it behind a phrase in a sentence, or copy-and-paste, leaving the address data unadorned. So I have chose that method here.
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http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2013/07/02/2236331/brazil-world-cup-olympics-economic-nightmare/ – 7/2/2013
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/perfect-storm-brazils-economic-climate-wake-social-unrest/ – 12/20/2013
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26809732
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26896491 – 4/5/2014
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/28/us-brazil-slums-insight-idUSBREA2R0MZ20140328 – 3/28/2014
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